


They're Just Machines, Right?

by Amazionion



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Rescue Bots
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cybertronians are stubborn about their internals, Gen, Graham is curious bean, Inspection, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28264641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amazionion/pseuds/Amazionion
Summary: Set in an AU where the Rescue Bots aren't completely terrible at keeping their secrets. Graham is very curious about his family's new equipment. He decides to poke around.Based off a conversation with a close friend on Tumblr
Comments: 23
Kudos: 66





	1. Initial Poking around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PaigePenn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaigePenn/gifts).



The day had ended for the Burns family and their new transforming machinery. The first day had gone surprisingly smoothly, but there were some serious bugs that they needed to work out before everything could be at optimal efficiency for rescues. In the living quarters, the Burns family was comparing notes they had to help better control their robots in situations. 

“The voice activated controls are a nice touch, but I think the voice recognition is a little wonky. My ‘copter kept trying to stick to the streets.” Dani poked at her dinner. “And it was resisting the controls. I think they need another calibration.”

Kade made a face between bites. “Voice controls are pretty convenient, but I’m not sure I like it talking back.”

Graham nodded. “It’s a little weird. They barely say anything anyway, what was the point? There’s no reason for them to be talking at all, unless it’s to make them more friendly looking to the public?”

“There’s nothing friendly about the voice they stuck on the fire truck.” Kade snickered to himself. 

“And who thought it was a good idea to have robots that turn into vehicles in the first place?” Dani was gesturing with her fork while she talked. “I mean, I guess I can see how it’s useful to have the vehicle and the mech all in the same place, but you gotta admit that it’s kinda silly. It sounds like a… like a kid’s toy.”

Cody piped up. “I think it’s pretty cool.” 

“Case in point.” Dani dug back into her food. 

Cody deflated a little bit. “They look cool.”

Graham finished up his plate. “Since I hope tonight will be quiet-” the whole family knocked on the wooden table, knocking over an empty glass, “I’m gonna go down to the garage to check out the bots. Since we didn’t get any specs with them I want to figure out how they work on my own.”

Chief Burns looked up from his plate. “You might want to give this one a rest. They’re a very complicated piece of machinery.” 

“Yeah, I know.” Graham adjusted his glasses. “I just want to go get my hands on it. I mean, for everything else we usually get specs, a user's manual, blueprints, something, but these are so classified we didn’t even get that! I’m excited to have to figure out how it all works on my own!”

“Alright.” Chief Burns stood and started gathering up plates. “Don’t stay up too late, and be gentle with them. There’s gonna be consequences if you break them.”

“Of course.” Graham excused himself and grabbed his tool belt as he passed the table by the door. The tool belt was slung over his shoulder as he made it down the stairs to the garage. 

The robots were frozen in place, but in very different positions than he left them in. He paused, one hand on the stair rail for a moment before he shook his head. Dad had mentioned a wander mode. They wouldn’t get out unless someone left the bay doors open.

“Return to your parking spaces and turn to vehicle modes please.” Graham cleared his throat. After a moment, the robots responded to his commands. 

Graham hopped off the bottom step and he started to approach his robot before pausing. The one modeled after a police cruiser would have the most similar systems. He knew engines, but a bulldozer engine wasn’t one he was too familiar with. After a moment he approached his father’s bot, the law enforcement robot. 

_ Okay, let’s take a peek under the hood. _

Graham went to pry up the hood and paused. There wasn’t any kind of ledge or overlap to pull up on. Okay, so it was locked. No big deal. 

He went over to the driver door and opened it up. He stuck one leg in the footwell and hauled himself half into the seat. He scanned around the steering wheel and didn’t see the release mechanism for the hood right away. After about three or four minutes of searching, he still couldn’t find anything that indicated a hood release, and he’d poked at a few of the more vague looking buttons just to make sure. Nothing. 

Climbing out of the cab, Graham shut the door and put his hands on his hips. 

_ Maybe the release switch is outside the car? That’s a poor choice for a police cruiser but… well not everything designed for the military is practical. Ease of use over security. _

Graham ran his hands under the ledge over the grille. He couldn’t find any release switch there. He pursed his lips and then crouched to peer around the metal. There had to be  _ something  _ to open the hood, right? He ran his fingers into all kinds of crevices, feeling for some little switch, some tab of metal, anything really to allow him to pop the hood and get a look at the engine. 

_ Nothing. Weird. _

He stood back up and tapped on the hood while he thought. He could go get a thin crowbar and try to force the hood open, but it was literally only a day after they had gotten it, and he didn’t want to break something, because he had a feeling there was a “you break it, you buy it” rule on this equipment that his father wasn’t telling him about. 

He suddenly remembered the voice commands and face palmed. “Of course. Police bot, open your hood.”

There was no movement. 

“Law enforcement robot, open your hood.” Graham waited for a moment and then gently nudged the bumper with his foot. “Hello?”

Still nothing. 

“Robot mode.” 

The car shifted slightly, and then it twisted up into the air, huge plates of metal shifting and moving and moving all across the metal chassis until the enormous robot stood in the car’s place. 

“Vehicle mode.”

The plates and machine moved back into a car shape and sat innocently in the parking space. 

_ They aren’t in shut down mode, so why isn’t it opening? _

“Unlock the hood. Release hood lock. Pop the hood. Open your hood.” Graham racked his brain for what had to be the right kind of command. “Please let me see your engine.”

After several minutes, an attempt at open sesame, and a google search for other synonyms for open and unlock, Graham gave up on the law enforcement bot. Maybe his own robot would be a little more cooperative. 

“Engineering robot, open up. Let me see your engine.” 

The bulldozer didn’t move. 

Graham groaned and let his forehead thunk against the hood of the police cruiser. Fine. They were going to be difficult. Maybe it was to keep them from reverse engineering their power source or engine or whatever. Trade secret to be protected. 

“I’m really, really starting to hate patents.” Graham wandered over to his bulldozer and scrambled up to the outside of the front of the cab. He was looking for any kind of access panel. Something to open, anything that would open at this point. 

Over an hour passed while Graham tried to desperately get into the new robots. Only twice he actually started over to get the crowbar, but ultimately refrained. 

“C’mon. Please open up.” Graham whined, slumping against the front of Kade’s new fire truck. “Why are you so stubborn? I promise I’m not a Russian spy, or is it a Chinese spy that everyone’s freaking out over now? I won’t tell anyone, I - I’m not even taking notes or recording anything. I just want to see your power source.”

Still no resonance or movement from any of the robots. 

Just as Graham was thinking about maybe putting the police cruiser on jacks, he heard someone coming down the stairs. 

“Graham, are you still screwing around with the equipment?” Kade was already in his pajamas. “Come on, Dad told me to come get you. You’ve been down here for almost two hours.”

“I’ve really been banging my head against them for two hours?”

Kade smirked and crossed his arms. “What? Couldn’t get them to open?”

“No. Whoever made them made sure that nobody was going to be able to get inside without damaging them.”

“Sounds more like a company thing than a military thing.”

Graham shrugged and gathered up his stuff. “I don’t know. Maybe they’re nuclear and don’t want anyone knowing about it.” 

“Well, you can play tomorrow. It’s time for bed.”

Graham muttered under his breath that he could stay up as long as he damn well pleased, but ultimately gave in and headed up the stairs. He paused at the base of the stairs and gestured to the bots sitting in their parking spaces. “I will figure you all out eventually.”


	2. Bots Confront Chief About Graham

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Chapter Title says it all
> 
> Contains; Brief mention of medical equipment, but that's it.

Chief Charlie Burns was up early. Aches and pains from years of work built up in his old bones and always got in the way of him sleeping. Since the rest of the family wasn’t up, he decided to slip down to the garage to check on the bots. He couldn’t quite remember if Agent Fowler in the briefing said whether or not Cybertronians slept, but it wouldn’t hurt to check it out. 

He knocked softly on the door before going down the stairs to let them know it was him. “Everyone adjusting okay?” He asked as he walked down the stairs. 

Boulder had what looked like a large syringe in his hands, and it was emptying into Heatwave’s arm. “We’re doing alright, Chief.”

“I have a concern.” Blades piped up from where he was reading a comic book in the corner. “What was with Graham poking at us last night?” 

“And why are you complaining? He didn’t even try with you.” Heatwave glared at Blades while Boulder put the syringe away in the bunker. 

It took a second for the Chief to remember that Graham had been in the garage for a while last night to ‘check out the new equipment.’ He rubbed his face and looked up at Heatwave. "Graham is a… naturally curious person. He's like that with all the new toys, don't take it personally. He's an engineer, it comes with the trade to want to learn about new machines."

Heatwave scoffed and crossed his arms. “We are  _ not  _ toys.”

“I - I know that, Heatwave, I just meant -” 

“I thought Graham was fully grown?” Chase tilted his head quizzically. “Surely he understands that we are to be used for emergency response only.” 

Chief pinched the bridge of his nose. “It's just a figure of speech. I didn’t mean it like that.” 

“Ah. Figure of speech. I’ll take note.” Chase turned away. 

Boulder was back. “As a fellow engineer, I understand the curiosity. I mean, he isn’t aware that we aren’t more than just machines. And with the secrecy surrounding our origins, it’s no wonder it sparked his interest.” 

“I’ll try to reign him back since it made you all uncomfortable.” Chief burns glanced back up the stairs. “No promises, though. Graham gets a little too excited about machinery.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know this is very short, but I can only write it in certain chunks. My deepest apologies to those who were expecting more.


	3. Night Two of Investigation

Graham was not easily deterred by one night of no results. He wanted some answers about his rescue equipment, and would be trying to get them tonight. This time he was going to try and figure out if the panels opened up in bot mode or something. 

“You going to play with the equipment again?” Kade asked as Graham slung his tool belt over his shoulder. 

“Yep. I think I might find something in bot mode, since that looks to be their kind of default mode.” 

“Whatever.” Kade went upstairs to his bedroom and Graham went downstairs to the garage. The equipment was in wander mode, but had frozen when Graham had opened the door. 

“Er, engineering bot, return to your parking spot.” 

After a second, Graham’s equipment obeyed, standing in the spot. Graham walked in a circle around it, trying to see if he should get it to move onto its front or back. It took a moment, but laying on its back should probably be the best way for him to access the panel that covered the power core. 

“Lay on your back.” 

After a second, the robot obeyed, laying down on its back. 

“Thanks.” Graham climbed up its side so he could observe the torso area from above. He glanced around and then got to work, seeing if any of the panels would come up. 

There weren't any of the panels that seemed to be able to be opened. None of them slid up, had hinges to be pried up, or some kind of mechanism to hold them in place. He crouched down and decided to start poking at the connecting points. Surely there had to be something there. 

The more that Graham looked, the more and more confused he got. He couldn’t find a single thing that actually held the robot together. No kind of bolt or nail or screw or hooking mechanism that was keeping the outside plates connected to the internal skeleton of the robot. 

“There’s no welding marks either.” Graham sat up, looking down the length of the robot. “What… what’s holding you together?” 

Graham hopped off its torso and crouched down by where it’s hand was laying on the concrete, palm up. He carefully inspected each finger where they would connect into the palm. The solid black casing had small gaps around the joints, but even directing the beam of a flashlight into the cracks didn’t show what was holding the plating in place. It just was attached to the metal underneath. No weld marks either. It looked like it was just casted as one solid piece of metal. Whatever hinge it used wasn’t exposed either, it was embedded in this casted metal. 

He sat back up and glanced around at the other bots. He pressed a fist against his mouth in thought for a moment before getting to his feet. “Fire bot. Return to your parking space.” 

After a minute, with Graham nearly repeating himself, the red robot moved over to its parking space and stood. Graham moved over to the side of the robot. “Kneel.” 

The robot shifted and got down on one knee, arm coming down to brace itself. 

“Thanks. Just stay still.” 

Graham climbed up onto its shoulder and started looking at its neck, straddling its shoulder for balance. The red casing had a tiny gap between the base of the robot’s head and the top of the casing where he could shine a flashlight at least to get a better look. He peered in the best he could, asking the bot to raise or lower its head to see if there was a better angle, but he was unable to see anything. He couldn’t even see what the casing was protecting. 

“Oh come on.” Graham groaned and gently tried to pry the casing back a bit. “You stupid piece of metal, just come-” 

It shifted suddenly and Graham found himself toppling down its front and onto the floor with a  _ smack.  _

Graham lay on the floor for a moment before getting to his hands and knees. “Fine. I’m sorry. I just….” He released a world-weary sigh and lowered his head, “I hate that I don’t know  _ anything  _ about this. Dad said it’s military tech repurposed for civilian use, and I don’t know anything about a power source, how to repair you, or even how you’re all put together. I just... I dunno. I feel useless.” 

He allowed a few more minutes to lay on the floor and wallow in self pity before getting up to his feet. 

“I should pack it in for the night before I fall off something else.” He grabbed his tool belt that had fallen nearby. “And maybe… pack it in for a few days.” 

They stayed silent. 

“Yeah. I’ll pack it in for a bit. You’ll all be around for a bit. I can try this again later.” 


	4. Bonus: Graham Being Mortified of his Actions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short, but I felt like a short and sweet could wrap this up.

Graham was pacing around the living room, trying and failing to curb his mental spiral. So, apparently, their rescue machinery was  _ alive  _ and had been this entire time. And apparently Dad knew from the beginning, but Cody had recently round out and events happened and then they revealed themselves to the rest of the family. 

“I was trying to open them up!” 

Kade was sprawled across the couch, munching on a bag of popcorn. “I don’t see what the big deal is.” 

“The deal is I was climbing on them!” Graham rubbed his face and sat down in one of the chairs. “I was talking out loud about their power source and that I wanted to open up their plates! That’s like if they wanted to open  _ me  _ up and look at my  _ heart  _ without any kind of surgical skill or anything. They must think i’m some kind of freaky mad scientist.” 

“Big whoop.” Kade crumpled up the empty popcorn bag. “You’re a nerd, not a mad scientist.”

“They don’t know that.” 

“Listen, Graham. It’s still your truck. Just… I don’t know. Get over it.”

“You’re so helpful.” Graham rolled his eyes. 

“Well talk to Cody, he seems to have gotten along swimmingly with our equipment.” Kade got up, threw the popcorn bag in the trash, and then he went upstairs to his room. 

Graham mumbled to himself and pulled out his phone to try and distract himself from the little knot of anxiety that’s been sitting in his stomach ever since he found out that the Rescue Bots were alive. 

“Did someone call my name?” Cody piped up. 

Graham looked up and then stuffed his phone in his pocket. “Oh. Cody. Hi.” He stood. “Uhm, you’re close to the bots, right?”

“Close enough. Why?” Cody had some drop cloths and a bucket of paint in his arms. 

“Do you know if they’re…. Mad about me poking around for a couple nights?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I swear I wouldn’t have done that if I had known they were alive.”

“You’re afraid they’re mad?” Cody readjusted the drop cloths in his arms. “Well, I’m about to help Boulder try some painting, so if you want to come talk to them, now would be a pretty good time.”

“Well, uhm, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.” Graham glanced towards the door that led down to the garage. “I’ll find time to apologize… later.” 

**Author's Note:**

> For PaigePenn, Merry Christmas!


End file.
